© AFP Pascal Pavani

CAIRO (AFP) - (AFP) - National carrier Egyptair on Saturday resumed direct flights to Iraq after a break of 21 years, the airline's chairman Hussein Massoud told AFP.

"The first Cairo-Baghdad flight left today with about 30 passengers on board," he said, adding Egyptair would fly four times a week to Baghdad and three times to Arbil, capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

The service was scrapped in 1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.